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The sky's so thick with gray not even the faintest shape of cloud shows through.

In the northwoods, the serene pulse of the lake greets buds and pollen falling under pines while bees hum praise from sunrise until dusk in this place of trees.

Say, how deep is the long lake, we asked a she-eagle who rose above the water like a great kite or parasail in the shape of a girl with wings.

The dog this morning found a rabbit's entrails in the grass, just feet from the house and the first porch step.

I halfway thought the wind would still be in them, but the little coppery chimes were full instead of spider sacs and dauber mud, gray-red from the airs of abandoned years and hard as a gem.

She was right about this place, the unforgiving winter months sullen, sunless, bitter, but then spring a dream God has and lets us slumber in until October.

In the moments after she has told the patient he has cancer, the prognosis threatening to slit the room’s throat, papers and charts in her hands and he, silent, looks up—who is she?